What to use instead of chicken bone broth
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Savoury cooking liquid for a soup or braise
Salt, glutamate and a little rendered fat. Rice and vegetables cooked in it come out seasoned all the way through, which salting at the end never achieves.
Chicken stock or low-sodium brothRan out
1:1
Close on flavour with less gelatine, so the finished soup feels thinner. Season a little harder at the end.
Bouillon paste or cubeRan out
1 tsp paste per 1 cup water
Much saltier and one-note. Add no salt at all until you have tasted the finished pot.
Vegetable stockPlant-based
1:1
Sweeter from the carrot and onion, and no gelatine, so a pan sauce made from it needs butter or a starch slurry for body.
Strained mushroom soaking liquid + waterPlant-based
1/2 cup soaking liquid + 1/2 cup water per 1 cup broth
Deep, earthy and much darker. Excellent in a stew, wrong in a pale chicken and rice soup.
DashiRan out
1:1
Cleaner, lighter and faintly smoky. The soup reads Japanese whatever else is in it.
What doesn't work: Water plus extra salt. It seasons and adds nothing else, so a chicken and rice soup made on water tastes thin however much salt goes in, because the glutamate and gelatine are what make it taste like soup.
Gelatine that gives a soup or pan sauce weight
Collagen from the bones sets to jelly cold and gives that lip-sticking body hot. Nothing about salt or flavour replaces it.
Powdered gelatine bloomed into stockRan out
1 tsp gelatine per 2 cups stock
Restores the body exactly with no change to the flavour. The cheapest fix there is.
Reduced stockRan out
Simmer 4 cups down to 2, starting from unsalted stock
Doubles the body and doubles the salt, which is why it has to start unsalted.
Cold butter whisked in off the heatRan out
1 tbsp per cup of liquid
Richness and gloss instead of gelatine weight. It splits if the pan goes back to a boil.
Cornstarch slurryRan out
1 tbsp cornstarch in 2 tbsp cold water per 2 cups liquid
Thickens without coating the mouth the same way, dulls the flavour slightly, and goes gluey if it sits.
What doesn't work: Stirring flour into a thin broth to fake body. It clouds the soup and coats the tongue in starch, and it never gives the clean gelatinous weight that makes a broth feel substantial.